In 1986, the Russian-American physicist Andrei Linde calculated that if inflation starts at a sufficiently high energy, there will always be someplace where the fluctuations win: the energy remains high, and inflation continues eternally. But there will be other places where the fluctuations lose and the expected trend of decreasing energy takes hold. These patches become entire individual universes such as our own. If we could zoom out far enough, we would see countless other universes, separated by Linde’s regions of the multiverse that are continuing to inflate.
